


ellipsis

by sheswanderlust



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23318968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheswanderlust/pseuds/sheswanderlust
Summary: Ellipsis (noun): a situation in which words are left out of a sentence but the sentence can still be understood
Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Daniel Ricciardo
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	ellipsis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [honeybutter (volleylover_09)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/volleylover_09/gifts).



> This fic is a present for the wonderful **honeybutter**. You deserve much more than these 1534 words (sorry, I didn't manage to make it a nicer number), but here we are anyway, I hope you'll like it. Thank you for everything: for these years of friendship, for the immense length of our Whatsapp chat, for all the worlds we create and we navigate together. Happy birthday <3 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr: @iammany
> 
> Disclaimer: as usual I know nothing and this is all fantasy.

Charles speaks three languages fluently, yet words still fail him. It’s a feeling he knows all too well: he opens his mouth and then that’s it – as on lap forty-six in a Bahrain night, he feels himself lose power, words melting down quickly on his tongue. So he closes his lips and averts his eyes, thinking that maybe it’s better this way. Words can make you vulnerable, and vulnerability is not an option.

Words have started failing him more and more since Dan has abruptly entered his life, taking a seat in the middle of his mind, no hesitations as he claimed the place as his own.

And suddenly there’s so much Charles would like to say – colours are too strong and feelings too vivid not to be told to the man in front of him.

Yet Charles opens his mouth and then closes it.

He tries again once he’s alone in his room, four white walls as the only audience, but still words stop somewhere on his lips.

He knows what to say, he doesn’t know _how_.

Of all the words Charles would like to say, some are dark, some are not.

He doesn’t know how to tell Daniel he’s scared he will die. He doesn’t know how to talk about the endless nights spent lying awake, eyes fixed on Dan’s chest rising and falling in the silence of the room, pitch black softened by the faint moonlight seeping in from outside. He feels ashamed by the way his mind falls in a loop where he just cannot close his eyes out of fear and keeps looking at him, in his stomach the same relentless panic he feels every time Daniel is late to meet him, worst case scenarios flashing in his mind as he waits.

Charles doesn’t know how to talk about it – the _fear of losing someone_ is somehow harder to put into words than the simple _fear of losing_ , so he doesn’t say anything when the next morning Daniel asks him how he slept. He just nods, sipping his coffee and following his boyfriend’s movements around the kitchen, light flowing in from the window, darkness locked somewhere in his mind.

Daniel notices. Words are not everything, he knows – it’s all in the silence of random mornings, when Charles’ hand looks for his, a clingy nervousness in his fingers, fear lingering somewhere in his irises.

Daniel notices, and takes his hand.

Of all the words Charles would like to say, some are so impalpable that he doesn’t even try.

The wind is sharp against his face, messing up his hair. He thinks about checking his appearance in the rear-view mirror, then forgets about it.

The coast unwinds in front of them, sea tinted in a deep blue that doesn’t belong anywhere other than on a summer afternoon. The sun shines on the water, making it almost too blinding to look at.

The road is smooth under the tyres of the car as they drive along the riviera, the radio playing a song Charles doesn’t know.

The lyrics intertwine with Daniel’s words, as he gesticulates with one hand, the other loosely placed on the steering wheel.

Daniel is made of lyrics. Charles cannot stop listening.

For once in his life he feels _right there_ , wind ruffling his hair, sun blinding his eyes, music playing for him. And he would like to tell Daniel about it, about _feeling in the moment_ only when they are together, not among past ghosts, not on a future podium, just right there, on the hot tarmac on a sunny day.

But the world inside seems too nuanced for words, so he just looks at him and smiles.

Daniel is blinding, more than the sun shining on the sea. And he’s made of lyrics, yet he knows Charles is made of silences. He sees his ruffled hair and his smile, carefree as he should always be, carefree as he never is. He sees his eyes behind the dark lenses of his Raybans, and he doesn’t ask.

The sea is blue, the sun is shining, the road is smooth and there’s nothing more to say.

Of all the words Charles would like to say, some are more important than others.

He cannot say Daniel how much he loves him. He has tried, believe me – in all the three damn languages he knows so well. He can discuss about mechanics and suspensions and front wings, yet those three words seem unreachable for him. He can ramble about his love for the sport, the adrenaline rush of braking late and pushing the limit a bit far off; about his love for Monaco, the angled sweetness of the coast, seagulls flying past above his head, salt and sand on his skin; _not_ about his love for Dan, even if it’s the truest and strongest feeling he’s ever felt.

Salt is thick in the air and sand is dense under his feet as he walks on a far-away beach, ocean wide in front of him, language different on the lips of the people strolling past them. It’s unknown, yet he already knows it all too well – it’s the salt and sand he inhales on Daniel’s neck, rooted into his tanned skin, so similar and yet different from what he washes off from himself after a day on a more familiar coast.

All is Dan around him as they walk on that Australian beach, and Charles would like to know how to say those words resonating somewhere inside his chest, between the ribs Dan loves to kiss. 

He opens his lips, then closes them again and averts his eyes.

Maybe one day he’ll learn.

Walking beside him, Daniel smiles.

He’ll take the silence.

Of all the words Charles would like to say, some are rooted deeper inside him.

He feels like a blurred picture sometimes. He feels as if his inner sense of self fades as soon as he steps out of the car, identity scattered in thousands of pieces that cannot fit together. He feels as if he’s kept together only by his racing suit and his helmet, all those ill-matching pieces forced together by fireproof fabric and carbon fibre.

It’s not that he doesn’t know who he is, he doesn’t even know _if_ he is.

Still, there are places where he feels steadier on his legs, where he feels more of a person. Landscapes he has internalised since he was running around in a much smaller overall, familiar faces he doesn’t feel shy with, people who see him as a whole and make him feel whole in return.

He doesn’t know if it works the same for everyone else – doesn’t know if others feel made by the places where they have grown up and by the people that made them grow up. That’s how it is for him, though. He feels a sepia picture, sometimes, the past printed in heavy colours inside him.

The karting track in Brignoles unfolds in straights and turns, grey tarmac and white and red barriers and green fields, karts racing intermittently past them.

If his heart had a location, that would be it. Every square metre of the track is linked to at least a couple of his memories. As he looks around he can see a past reflection of himself in any spot: playing table football inside the building; sitting on the ground and chatting while looking at the karts speeding up on the straight; and then on track, always on track, racing on and on until the sun would set down and a familiar voice would call his name to go home. He can see himself grudgingly hopping off the kart in his yellow overall, the same colour of the hoodie he’s wearing right now, Daniel’s scent weaved to the fabric.

Daniel is there, walking on his side. There’s something deep in this. Charles feels as if the whole place is a map of himself being laid down in front of the Aussie, pinpointing every twist and turn of his life.

It feels intimate.

He feels naked.

As he looks around, todays mixing with yesterdays, he wonders if in ten years he will look at the field around the track where he’s walking now and will see the present moment, a twenty-two years old Charles overthinking it as usual, a yellow hoodie on, a yellow soul on his side.

He wonders if in ten years Daniel will still be beside him.

And there’s so much he would like to say –about the way the place feels like a sanctuary for him, about the lump he felt in his throat as he watched Daniel chatting easily with the people he has known since forever, about how big and deep and meaningful it is to have him there.

There’s so much he would like to ask, too – because there’s an urgency in the way he holds on the hope that in ten years Daniel will still be there with him, in spite of his silences, in spite of his blurred margins, in spite of the pieces he barely keeps together.

As karts race past, finding the words is harder than ever.

Daniel looks at him and understands.


End file.
